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Stop the war

War in Yemen since 2015
UN: 14 million people/ 50% population in pre famine condition.
Saudi Arabia has had a free run in Yemen.
Riyadh saw the Houthis as Iranian proxies
So far: 6k civilians died & 10k are injured
At least 22 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, of whom 14 million are extremely dependent on aid for survival.
Deadly Cholera outbreak: 1.1 million affected

The great game in West Asia

Ironic: 1 murder has done more work than issues of millions.
Turkey is unhappy as Saudi wants to rule this region.
USA supporting Saudi is an indication that others are not that important.
Downturn in Turkish-U.S. relations because of Syrian Kurds.
Turkey’s decision to buy the S-400 anti-missile defence systems from Russia has also added to the tensions.
Political pattern in both Turkey and Saudi is opposite from each other.
Qatar has close relations with Iran & Turkey.
hosts a Turkish military base.
shares the world’s largest natural gas field
Emir of Qatar had sent a contingent of soldiers to provide security to Mr. Erdoğan during the failed military coup in 2016.
Ankara, Moscow and Tehran

Time to talk

Simmering tensions: RBI vs Centre
Deputy Governor Viral Acharya: independence of central bank important for economy.
There are three issues on which the Centre seems to have irked the RBI.
Lack of adequate powers of RBI in regulating public sector banks.
RBI’s burgeoning reserves, a piece of which the Centre is eyeing to bridge its fiscal gap.
Independent payments regulator proposal by Centre
RBI circular of February 12 which redefined NPAs and revised the framework for resolution.
It is also upset that the central bank is not doing enough to ease the ongoing liquidity squeeze through extraordinary measures.
Sitting around a table can sort these problems
A certain amount of creative tension is systemically in-built given their different perspectives: one is short-term and political; the other is long-term and technical.

From uncertainty to crisis

Constitutional coup
Section 42(4) of the Constitution merely enables the President to appoint a PM.
President: since he is the appointing authority, he also has the implicit power to sack the PM.
Executed in a great hurry and in secrecy.
Mr. Wickremesinghe: long as there is no noconfidence motion passed in Parliament against him and the cabinet, his position as PM cannot be invalidated by the President at his will.
The 19th Amendment, which created a dual executive, made the PM’s position secure from the arbitrary actions of the President.
Thus, the office of the PM falls vacant only under limited circumstances. Death, voluntary resignation, loss of support in Parliament, rejection by Parliament of the budget, and ceasing to be an MP are these circumstances.
Westminster framework of relationship between the head of state, the PM, and Parliament.
The collective failure of Mr. Sirisena and Mr. Wickremesinghe to be faithful to the 2015 mandate has now brought Mr. Rajapaksa back to power on the invitation of one party in a coalition which dislodged him from power.

Who pays taxes and who doesn’t

Central Board of Direct Taxes: The number of taxpayers has increased drastically over the last four years.
The number of tax returns filed has surged to 6.85 crore in FY 2017-18, an 80% growth since FY 2013-14.
Also, the number of taxpayers reporting income greater than ₹1 crore has reached 1,40,139, an increase of 60% between assessment year (AY) 2014- 15 and 2017-18.
However, the tax collections have not shown commensurate increase.
Collections have grown at a decent compound rate of about 13% per annum.
While for the low tax slabs, the average reported income has also increased, this is not the case with high income groups.
The Income Declaration Scheme of 2016 and other official measures announced to stem tax evasion by the rich have failed to achieve the desired results.
Global Wealth Report 2018, by Credit Suisse
3,400 Indians have an annual income of more than ₹50 crore each
Only 179 of them reported this level of income to the taxman in AY 2017-18.
1,500 Indians with an expected annual income of more than ₹100 crore each, only 61 reported to the taxman.
Professionals continue to under-report their income.
Tax avoidance/ evasion by companies also remains an area of serious concern.
7% of corporates reported profit before tax of more than ₹1 crore.
Goods and Services Tax: generates trails of transactions across value and income chains.
The law should mandate filing of returns by all professionals and proprietorship businesses regardless of their profit.
Definition of admissible expenditures are susceptible to easy manipulation.
2017-18, as much as 46% of corporates reported either losses or nil profit.
At present, the Income Tax Department has a very poor win rate before the appellate tribunal and the higher judiciary.

Facebook leaks redux

September: Facebook announced that it had discovered a security breach that had compromised nearly 50 million accounts.
The figure was subsequently revised to 30 million.
It is also unclear how many personal data have been stolen, and how that data may end up being used in ways that could harm Facebook users.
European Union (EU)’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) makes it mandatory for companies to declare a breach in 3 days.
Facebook faces a potential penalty of €20 million or 4% of its global revenue (whichever is higher) if the EU regulator investigating the data breach finds a GDPR violation in connection with the incident.

Important News

SC sets January 2019 to fix a date for Ayodhya hearing
Bhima-Koregaon case: SC stays High Court order
189 feared dead in Indonesian jet crash
Modi, Abe back ‘free Indo-Pacific’
India and Japan outlined a vision for strengthened bilateral relations at the 13th annual summit here on Monday.
Japan’s formulation of a “free and open Indo-Pacific” received a central place in the vision statement issued at the end of the talks, with both sides stressing their “unwavering commitment to it.” The concept is usually seen as a response to China’s growing dominance in the region.
It also referred to the necessity of ensuring the freedom of navigation and the importance of upholding the UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea), a set of conventions that China has been accused of flouting in the South China Sea.
Mr. Modi and Mr. Abe further announced the start of negotiations on an Acquisition and Crossservicing Agreement, a logistics-sharing pact, that would allow Japanese ships to get fuel and servicing at Indian naval bases.
Mr. Abe told the press that 57 Japanese companies had committed to investing 320 billion yen in India, which is expected to create at least 3,000 new jobs. Mr. Modi said that he was convinced that the 21st century could be an Asian century only with a strong India-Japan relationship at its core.
India, Japan sign $75 billion currency swap agreement
India and Japan signed a currency swap agreement worth $75 billion during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Japan, the government announced on Monday.
A currency swap typically involves the exchange of interest and sometimes of principal in one currency for the same in another currency.
Interest payments are exchanged at fixed dates through the life of the contract.
“The swap arrangement should aid in bringing greater stability to foreign exchange and capital markets in India,” the government said. With this arrangement in place, prospects of India would further improve in tapping foreign capital for country’s developmental needs.